Thursday 27 October 2011

Finding the Key to the Zedruu Puzzle

Quick Shot.

I'm having a huge problem solving the Zedruu puzzle. That is, making a deck where she's important but the deck isn't just a lame donate duck. Mixing control with getting the engine going and eventually winning is quite a lot for that uneasy mix of colours.

I think I've found the key to the puzzle that allows Zedruu to give away crazy permanents ....... for benefit!


Confusion in the Ranks  effectively gives away almost every single non-land permanent you put into play. While your opponents will get the opportunity to fight over various permanents on the board, it's actually quite rare that, when your turn comes around, you're going to want to take one of your own permanents back. If your permanents fly back and forward between opponents, you don't care, it will still trigger Zedruu. Add in Norin the Wary and you're guarenteed to have Zedruu on your side of the board come your upkeep (if she's still alive) to pile up on those life points and free cards.

One obvious additional advantage to Confusion is that you don't need Bazar Trader, Donate or Zedruu to give away your nasty artifacts or enchantments, they just fly away automatically when they come into play. Other players are extremely unlikely to choose to pick up a Lich's Tomb or Illusions of Grandeur from some unfortunate victim which makes sure your gifts remain given.

3 comments:

  1. I'm curious to see how it will turn out: either the confusion or the norin without the other seem suboptimal. What kind of tutoring are you running in the deck?

    In my Zedruu deck I run Gilded Drake and Vedalken Plotter as honest switch cards and several permanents that I don't mind donating: O-ring and the like plus some enchantments and artifacts that affect all players regardless of controller. The idea is that the deck will build up some defense, until quite a few rounds in and then play Zedruu and donate several cards for fun and profit. I haven't yet tested it, but I might get to try it tonight.

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  2. So far I've had the Confusion in play exactly twice, neither time with Norin (though he's really only useful with Genesis Chamber). Both times the table fell over itself to kill the Confusion before it could do anything significant.

    Hands down the best card I've had in play with Zedrüu to date is Kher Keep. The ability to spit out 0/1s that no-one wants to attack into both lock up the board and gives you useless permanents to pass to opponents.

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  3. Ah, I totally missed token engines (especially 0/1's) for my Zedruu deck. Thanks for the enlightenment.

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